A Writing Tip for Self-Discipline

Put the Cart before the Horse

When I was a child, I took piano lessons. I love music and wanted to play. But as most children do, I hated practicing. First there was the disconnect between what I wanted to play (and hear) and what I was capable of playing. But second, practicing was a must rather than a can. When I became a mom and required my own children to pound away at the ivories, my mother surreptitiously sent me sheet music for a song I liked. I skipped many a good dinner-making, laundry-hanging, and bedtime-reading session to learn to play that song. Practicing was no longer a requirement but a guilty pleasure, and my mother knew it when she sent the music.

Writers face a similar dichotomy of will when we transition from sneaking time to jot down a new idea to writing on demand, don’t we? The ideas seem to dry up when we have to write, when we’re no longer playing but working. We start treating the very creative act we love as slave labor and wonder how we never knew before that cleaning out an email inbox could be so fun.

Oh, we are such intractable creatures committed to our autonomy and motivated reasoning!

Because of this great difficulty—and perhaps also the topic of Paul in Romans 7—I take exception to the wise saying, “Don’t put the cart before the horse.” The coiners of that phrase, however much logic they possessed, had no idea how stubborn my horse can be. When it comes to starting a new project or writing to meet a deadline, my horse becomes almost donkey-like, sitting back on its haunches rather than moving forward. Dangling carrots? Not enough to overcome inertia or the electronic distractions at my fingertips.

Moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt writes on how he observed and experimented with the “verbal handcuff” of must on his young son: When my son, Max, was three years old, I discovered that he’s allergic to must. When I would tell him that he must get dressed so that we can go to school (and he loved to go to school), he’d scowl and whine. The word must is a little verbal handcuff that triggered in him the desire to squirm free.
The word can is so much nicer: “Can you get dressed, so that we can go to school?” To be certain that these two words were really night and day, I tried a little experiment. After dinner one night, I said “Max, you must eat ice cream now.”
“But I don’t want to!”
Four seconds later: “Max, you can have ice cream if you want.”
“I want some!” [1]
We may no longer be three years old, but our wills often continue to behave as such. As Haidt noticed, “The difference between can and must is the key to understanding the profound effects of self-interest on reasoning.” [2] Telling ourselves we must write creates an obstacle we will then have to vault ourselves over. So how do we change a blank page or the blank screen that needs filling from a must to a can?

I would like to propose that often the horse has no objection to moving forward; she has an objection to pulling a heavy load. And let’s be honest: a blank page, an impending deadline, and indecision can weigh on us like a mountain trying to compress us into granite. So I suggest instead that we should put the heavy cart before the horse and point both downhill.

What does that action look like in writing terms? Here’s some techniques I’ve used:

Create new habits with positive, play-like activities. Having trouble starting or sticking to the regular writing session, or sitting down to write the contracted article? Schedule the session to coincide with something positive and relaxing that feels like a break from work: tea or special coffee on the back porch (as long as you’re writing). Or give yourself fifteen minutes to read a chapter of a novel or favorite book before turning to your own work (it’s important that the reading and writing take place in same location one right after the other). In other words, tell yourself what you can do as long as you’re writing—something you’ll look forward to as a “guilty” pleasure.

Write whatever you can instead of what you must (free writing). Set a timer for ten or fifteen minutes and type out whatever comes to your mind even if the sentences create illogical paragraphs, but keep typing without stopping until the timer goes off. Some of my writing has phrases in it like, “My feet are cold,” “I need to get the mail,” and “What am I making for dinner tonight?” But eventually my mind gets all those distracting thoughts out of the way and turns to the important subject matter. For me, this kind of entrance into writing doesn’t replace clustering (or mind mapping) on paper but rather shakes the cobwebs out. If I find I’m starting to focus on what I need to write about but stuck in abstracts and sensory-deficient language, I’ll grab a pencil and paper and switch to free association of sensory details and ideas that way. It doesn’t matter which method I’m using as long as my fingers are typing or the pencil is moving.

Schedule writing times when you would normally be required to do other work. Arrange to go to the office an hour late one day a week. Schedule a long lunch “appointment.” Plan for leftovers or get take-out on your “I don’t have to cook because I’m writing” evening.

Writing is work, but if you can just get the horse to start moving with the cart, she’ll likely keep moving all the way down the hill.

[1]Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion (New York: Vintage Books, 2013), http://jeffco.axis360.baker-taylor.com/Title?itemid=0009839976. Chapter 4.

[2] Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind, Chapter 4.